


On ne joue pas impunément

by tomato_greens



Series: Erik Lehnsherr's Princess Diary [1]
Category: Princess Diaries - All Media Types, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-12
Updated: 2012-03-12
Packaged: 2017-11-01 20:28:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/360916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomato_greens/pseuds/tomato_greens
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It feels not like a defeat but a strategy––she’s mazed him in his own motel room with her kitten-heeled pumps and her pencilled-on eyebrows. </p>
<p>//Or, the one where Erik is a princess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On ne joue pas impunément

**Author's Note:**

> Title and cut text from [Laisse tomber les filles](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVA670WKAQc) by France Gall (another more recent version by April March can be listened to [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljTQVyWJ8uA)).
> 
> Also, I'm pretty sure this is the best idea I will ever have for anything ever in my entire life. If Erik and Grandmère (who is based more on the book version of herself) had a cage match, _I don't know who I'd bet on._ Just sayin'.

Erik Lehnsherr is thirty years old. He has spent the better part of the last twenty years honing his anger to a fine and deadly blade; he has been known to subsist on nothing but instant black coffee, cigarettes, and jerky stolen from the nearest nickel and dime, because he is a fully functioning adult who understands that sometimes sacrifices must be made. This is also why he has not had an orgasm in seven months––he’s determined to leave as few tracks as possible, and he channels the energy into the hunt instead, his mind sharp and his blood hot. In short, he is a terrifying, sexually repressed, and perpetually starved individual, and he _does not have time for this shit._

The woman sitting across from him, who was introduced as the Her Royal Highness Dowager Princess Clarisse Marie Grimaldi Renaldo by her blank-faced assistant, is tiny, clearly ancient in that well-preserved way that some women get, like she’s been pickled regularly in formaldehyde disguised as––he sniffs––yes, rosewater, perhaps lilies. She oozes high class and, faintly, the telltale sour whiff of stale cigarettes. “And yet,” she says acerbically, sipping from her sidecar and never letting her eyes leave his, “here we are.”

“I’m still not sure what precisely you expect me to do here,” he admits. It feels not like a defeat but a strategy––she’s mazed him in his own motel room with her kitten-heeled pumps and her pencilled-on eyebrows, which she raises at him as she sips from the cocktail glass again; he’s brute-forcing the escape, one tactic after another. 

“The only thing there is to do, Mr. Lehnsherr––Erik,” she says. She is as inscrutable as a combination lock. The assistant is still blank-faced at the door. He is oddly unnoticeable for all his bulk––a light fixture. “Take your rightful place as my heir to the throne.”

The idea is preposterous, obviously. He hasn’t the time; Sebastian Shaw is newly dead, gutted like a deer on the floor of his ridiculous submarine after Emma Frost discovered the women’s movement, but those loyal to him and his particular brand of madness are still out there, still following his orders, and Erik has been at the mercy of men who were just following orders. “I’m not comfortable in that capacity,” he says instead. “The idea of royalty doesn’t––sit well with me.”

“Don’t think of it like that,” she admonishes, waving a hand; a ring she’s wearing, too expensive to be opulent, catches the light and sends it back into his face. He squints away, wishing he could dull the metal without attracting her attention. “I’ve got no delusions of grandeur about my position, Erik. I’m a purely ceremonial leader, I’m the face of the Genoshan people. I attend banquets and hobnob. I wear a crown and pretend it means more than my money or my bloodline, but we both know it doesn’t really. I smile for the cameras. I’m a woman of a certain age, Erik, it’s what I do. It’s who I am.” She leans back. “You, of course, being younger and more photogenic, might be able to do a bit more.”

“I’ll think about it,” he says as honestly as he can. “But I don’t know.”

“I suppose I can’t push you,” she sighs. “I know your type: push, and you’ll never see the right of it.” She drains her glass and sets it on the wooden side table; it’s going to leave a ring. He has to repress the urge to get a tissue from the bathroom. “Do think about it, Erik. I appreciate your time. I’ll leave you now, but please,” and she hands him a card, “don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.”

He turns the card over: it’s a bright, clean white, the crisp black font elegant in its simplicity. _House of Genosha_ , it reads, followed by two telephone numbers, one he recognizes as French and the other he doesn’t recognize at all––Genoshan, he supposes. “Thank you,” he says. “Don’t forget your glass.”

“Keep it,” she says, throws him a smile, a charity case. A token.

“Sure.” She’s nearly out the door when he thinks of it. “You haven’t told me your mutation.”

She shrugs effusively as her assistant helps her into her fur coat. “Who says I have one?” 

“You’re the Dowager Princess of Genosha,” Erik says. The assistant hands her clutch to her, its single pearl button shined to a marvelous sheen. “Of course you’ve got a mutation.”

“Oh, I think you’ll find that’s for me to know and you to worry about desperately,” she says, and leaves.

Erik puts the card carefully in his wallet and then wipes the side table clean. No sense in paying for damages he didn’t even make. He’s paid enough fines for mysterious dents and cuts in the walls, disordered coffee machines, missing ball bearings or washers, which most of the time he’s not doing on purpose––the iron in his blood just sings.

*

He opens his eyes the next morning to a wake-up call he didn’t order and a breakfast he certainly wouldn’t have paid for. Neatly placed beside the eggs is another card, this one with a name on it–– _Charles Xavier, House of Genosha_ , the same two numbers. There is a small arrow penned on the bottom right corner, and when he turns the card over, the same hand continues with an obviously American telephone number, and, _If you have more questions._

Erik imagines the assistant calling in the breakfast, writing in the note, and wonders who the advice is from. He has more questions; he calls the number.

“Yes, hello?” 

The voice sounds English and distracted, probably young. “Charles Xavier?” Erik asks dubiously. 

“Speaking,” the voice says, then after a pause, suspicious and slow, “This isn’t Raven, is it––who are you? How did you get this number?”

“My name is Erik Lehnsherr,” Erik says. “And––”

“Ah,” says the voice, “I see,” and it’s sharper, suddenly, like it’s come into focus. “Mr. Lehnsherr, of course. I should have expected Raven would give you this number.”

“Raven?” Erik asks. “How do you know who I am? What do you know about me?”

“Everything,” the voice says, cool, like it’s nothing. Erik wonders idly how long they’ve been spying on him, where the cameras have been hidden, why he didn’t sense their minutely intricate metal parts. But Sebastian Shaw is dead and he has nothing to hide. Let them watch him brush his teeth and read the terrible romance novels he’s become addicted to over the past few years, his very very occasional habit of drinking himself to sleep. “Of course. And Raven is––someone works for Her Highness in various capacities.”

“Oh,” says Erik. “I was only calling for––”

“Yes, of course,” the voice says. “Let’s meet somewhere, shall we? Bryant Park? Midtown? After lunch––two o’clock? This kind of thing is easier in person.”

“All right,” Erik says uneasily. He’s never been fond of green spaces.

*

Erik has just climbed the stairs into the park and is standing near one of the entrances, just wondering where he’ll find this Xavier character, when he’s approached by an oddly beautiful man in a sweater who’s biting back the smile his very red lips are threatening to break into.

“For God’s sake, in the middle of the day?” Erik asks, unimpressed. “Can’t you at least wait until after the sun goes down for that kind of thing?”

The man stares at him for a few seconds, then his eyes crinkle appealingly. “I think I’ve made the wrong impression,” he says, and immediately Erik wants to strangle something; his voice. The man holds out a hand. “Dr. Charles F. Xavier, at your service. Call me Charles.”

“Erik Lehnsherr,” Erik says grudgingly, and shakes it. “You shouldn’t––smile like that.”

“No?” Charles says, and shrugs, turning and tucking his hands in his pockets. In profile, he seems sharper, more dangerous. “Perhaps not.” 

He begins to walk away, jerking his chin for Erik to follow, and Erik does, like he’s been enthralled, bewitched. It should be embarrassing but somehow isn’t cripplingly so, for which Erik is grateful. “The Genoshan throne,” Erik starts, but can’t continue.

“Was in jeopardy,” Charles says, shrugging. “Her Highness had no appropriate immediate heir, thus she calls on you.”

“Why me?”

“The usual reasons––bloodlines were traced, records found. I wasn’t involved in the process, but I heard it wasn’t especially contestable, no more than these things usually are. The Renaldo family isn’t big and they’ve been dying off for years. You were the most eligible candidate.”

Erik snorts despite himself. He has never been the most eligible of anything in his life. “I doubt that.”

“As you like,” Charles says easily. He doesn’t sound nearly as distracted without paper rustling and a record on in the background. He says he splits his time between American academia and hovering in the background of Genoshan politics, and Erik isn’t surprised by that; he’s a good lecturer, interesting, answers Erik’s questions with a vaguely good cheer and gracefully bypasses anything he deems too diplomatically fragile. 

“Not one to be giving away state secrets, then?” Erik says when Charles dances around the topic of Genosha’s access to nuclear arms.

Charles shakes his head, smiling crookedly. “Rarely.” He slides a glance at Erik just under his eyelashes. “Though I have my moments.”

“I’m sure you do,” Erik says, raising an eyebrow at him. Charles isn’t particularly tall and he’s quite slender, but he’s seems to have muscle hiding under the old-man clothing, and his hair, which is sweetly tousled in an absent-minded sort of way, and Erik hasn’t so much as fantasized since Shaw’s death, which he is now severely regretting. “And if I have more questions?”

“Call me,” Charles says, miming a phone with one hand. “You have my card. I’m sure we’ll see one another around, anyhow.”

*

Erik pays an inordinate amount for an international calling card and leaves a message on a machine in France, then another one on the one in Genosha, from one of the payphones in Penn Station. He wonders why they don’t have a secretary, decides it doesn’t matter––perhaps the numbers on the card are designed to be recorded, perhaps the Princess travels with an entourage. “I’ll do it,” he says, one finger caressing the corner of the machine. “But I want to be reimbursed for this call, and I want Dr. Xavier.” 


End file.
